APPT Macau: Joe jumps as Andre ascends

Carnage: that’s the word that perfectly describes the opening minutes of level 8 on day 2 of the PokerStars.net APPT Macau main event.

On our first lap of the 21 tables in use at the start of today’s play, the all-in button was present on 16 of them as the short stacks made their move (or the big stacks had a tee time to make).

Team PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem survives an all-in on the first hand at the expense of Daisy Wain.

The main beneficiary of this madness was Team Poker Stars Pro Joe Hachem, who doubled through Daisy Wain on the first hand, then again through Barry O’Callaghan when Joe’s pocket aces stayed ahead of the Irishman’s A-J (despite a scary board of 7-7-7-4-9).

After gallantly carrying his short stack right through day 1A, Harry Demetriou spent barely 10 minutes in his seat before coming his stack with Jc-9c against Mansour Matloubi’s Ah-Kc on a flop of 9s-6c-Ac. Despite plenty of outs, the turn (3s) and river (4h) missed Demetriou and he was out.

Team PokerStars Pro Lee “Final Table” Nelson was another player to double-up in the opening level when his 7-9 improved to a straight on a board of 10-7-8-A-J against his opponent flopped two pair (J 10).

PokerStars Sponsored player Emad Tahtouh also benefitted from the early shove-fest when he Alexander Jung made a stand with pocket 10s on a board of 6s-7c-6c, only to find Tahtouh with trips (Ah-6h). The Aussie is up to 70,000, and now has the short-stacked Team PokerStars Pro Isabelle Mercier seated two spots to his right.

The first level of day 2 has just concluded with the 208 players who took their seats already reduced to 161 – that’s one elimination every 90 seconds. The tournament will be over at 6pm if we continue at this rate!